


I think I made you up inside my head

by pangaeaseas



Category: AUSTEN Jane - Works, Emma (2020), Emma - Jane Austen
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, But also not, Character Study, Domestic, Gen, Implied Sexual Content, Infidelity, Metafiction, Post-Canon, Pregnancy, Vignette, blink and you miss it though, it could be interpreted as hopeful, kind of, small traces thereof
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:55:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23579512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pangaeaseas/pseuds/pangaeaseas
Summary: When November comes it is like letting go of a breath. The actual wedding she hardly remembers; it was such a relief to finally have it done, to be finally sealed to him, that it fades from her mind. She cannot remember any moment in which she ceased to be Jane Fairfax and became Mrs Frank Churchill; it was a gradual change, like the rising of a mountain range, she imagines.Jane Fairfax gets married and learns different meanings of "til death do us part."
Relationships: Frank Churchill/Jane Fairfax, Jane Fairfax & Frank Churchill
Comments: 8
Kudos: 49





	I think I made you up inside my head

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Sylvia Plath's "Mad Girl's Love Song" because it kind of fits (though Jane is perfectly sane!) and I guess it's not totally overused.

When November comes it is like letting go of a breath. The actual wedding she hardly remembers; it was such a relief to finally have it done, to be finally sealed to him, that it fades from her mind. She cannot remember any moment in which she ceased to be Jane Fairfax and became Mrs Frank Churchill; it was a gradual change, like the rising of a mountain range, she imagines.

“You are a lovely bride, my dear-” her aunt said, and many things besides, directed round at everyone. The new Mrs Knightley gave her congratulations. Mrs Weston embraced her, and they were off.

In the carriage, she didn’t look straight at him, gazed cautiously at his leg. She gave a small half-smile. Waited, took deep breaths, and tried to be calm and rational. Good girl Jane- good woman Jane.

The night, when it arrived, was not so horrible as she imagined. For a moment it hurt, but the pain passed and he, at least, seemed to enjoy it. Her strongest memory forever afterwards was the weight of him, slumped in the bed, how it sagged to accommodate his weight.

***

Enscombe is cold this winter, and lonely. She receives a letter from Mrs Dixon, weighs carefully out her reply like measuring flour, and argues with the housekeeper about curtains in the drawing-room.

“What are you doing, my darling?” he asks, returned from some duty or other (she had not realized how many duties there are) as she writes. She tries nobly to calm the raging blush of anger left from her last foray with the housekeeper.

“I am writing to Mrs Dixon.”

“Mrs Dixon! Why, I see your blush, my dear- is it not that another will see this letter?”

“It is meant for her,” she protests, but in vain.

“But it is common, for married couples to share their letters- your every word must be considered, in that light.”

She frowns, and wishes to make some statement to the effect that she had thought there was no need for secrecy, now they were married. She says nothing. It would not be amiable to speak, it would not be dignified and proper to speak, and she is amiable and dignified and proper and a thoroughly commendable woman.

“Mr Dixon shall see this, darling, you are sorry to think it- why may that be?” he says, tone balanced carefully between teasing and tearing.

“There is no reason for me to consider whether Mr Dixon shall see this or not,” she says, but he teases her the rest of the evening, as if they are not married after all. If in her bedroom she cries a little, she forgets.

***

There is a ball, and as first lady in the neighborhood she must attend. They dance together- he is as fine a dancer as he has always been, and eyes follow them, girls giggling at him behind their fans. She speaks with the other married ladies- all older than her, there are none who might be her ever-expected friend as the new Mrs Knightley was. He speaks with the gentlemen, and tires of them, and goes round the married ladies, kisses hands and smiles. Old Mrs Brown, who must be forty years old, blushes like a girl. (To say nothing of the young ladies, unmarried, who are pushing each other aside to be recipient of his looks, and words.

“Frank, you are too much of a flirt,” she says.

“Why, there is no such thing!” he laughs, and makes some comment or other about nagging wives to a group of gentlemen who all laugh heartily. They part for him like the Red Sea. She hears two women whispering, “ _ That lucky thing,”  _ as she passes by. “ _ I cannot understand what he saw in her.” _

***

After the ball her maid undresses her. To feel other hands on her body is still somewhat new, and she flinches. Fixes her eyes determinedly on the mirror in her bedroom as the trappings of a married lady are taken from her, dress and petticoats falling away, the first lady in the neighborhood just Jane again. He does not come to her, but she imagines him besides her, smiling and laughing as he had, all for her. She stares into the mirror, sees her own face in the glass, that ever good girl Jane. Over the image of her own face she imagines her smile at Weymouth, her sickness of the heart and mind at Hartfield, and she can hardly believe it when the fantasy fades and she sees Mrs Churchill.  _ I thought I would be happier,  _ she thinks as if narrating a frivolous novel, of the sort she does not read.

***

Her husband has taken up a friendship with Mrs Brown, the married lady almost elderly, and she comes by almost every day. Frank is out on the estate, and Mrs Brown is announced, and she does not know what to do. She is not a grand lady, who puts everyone at ease, and is loved by the whole neighborhood. Instead she was an orphan, raised by kind and charitable and pitying friends, almost a governess. She makes conversation about the weather as Mrs Brown fidgets with Jane’s fire screen and asks after Jane’s husband. It will never be said that Jane Churchill is not amiable, and proper, and gracious.

When Frank comes in, he looks to Mrs Brown first with a dazzling smile, as if he is shining the sun on her. Mrs Brown flushes like a girl. 

“Augusta!” he says, Christian name intimate in his mouth like a lover’s kiss. “I have been dying, absolutely dying, to see you.”

“How are the horses?” Jane asks, remembering his pretext for leaving that morning.

“Oh, Jane. I thought- I thought you were visiting Mrs Mitchell.” His look reminds her of how he had looked at her from across the room, when he was flirting with the new Mrs Knightley. As if he was trying to apologize, but the expression unable to fully form across his face.

“She is indisposed,” she says. “I have some embroidering to do, and I must speak with the housekeeper.”

Mrs Brown is twenty years her senior but looks as Jane had done, on those days in Weymouth, when Jane thought herself in love. They go. She sits in the parlor, and tries not to watch them leave.

***

Spring comes, new birth filling the landscape with promise. Frank Churchill accompanies his wife on a walk, and meets with two women along the way who give him secret smiles and caressing words. She remembers herself in Weymouth; she would have been them. The sun is high in the sky, and the day is the kind of day that makes people glorify God. She has been sick for a few weeks, and suspects the cause. His arm in hers is slack, and he is forever pulling away to look at something or other.

“Frank, stay with me,” she says, with a hint of the firmness of decision she is known for.

“My apologies, fair lady,” he says, and kisses her hand with the light touch of a false apology. “There are so many lovely things to see- though you are the loveliest.” For a moment it is Weymouth again, and his eyes are only on her, and she loves him.

“Ah, Miss Cartwright!” he cries, releasing his grip on her. She watches Miss Cartwright blush, feels the tickling ghost of her own blushes. They are gone forever now.

She places her hand on her stomach and looks at the sky, trying to hope, as he flirts outrageously. She imagines him coming back to her, staying with her the whole of the walk. She could see it once, before they were married. She cannot now; but if this is a novel, it is the rest of her life.

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, so Emma is one of my favorite Jane Austen novels, and I think Emma herself gets quite the happy ending. Jane Fairfax and Frank Churchill? Not so much. I've always considered them a really bad match and this is, essentially, why- he's too flirtatious and charming and doesn't seem to care for her much, and I think what "love" between them was attraction, not the foundation of a loving marriage.  
> If I made any historical errors, sorry, and please comment to correct.


End file.
